Thanks goes out to Duck, XalkXolc, Evelos, and my thesis advisor for reading this in advance and offering thoughts and opinions. You can find Evelos and all her wonderful work here on . If you haven't read Anomalies yet, you should. It's only the greatest work ever produced within this fandom (in my humble opinion).
This should be a long ride, so buckle up.
Fang woke to the faint smell of smoke and the sound of distant screaming. She threw herself out of her bed, unmindful of the covers she tossed to the floor in the process, and assessed her immediate surroundings for the slightest hint of danger. She'd slept in the room enough to call it hers, and if any part of it was amiss there wasn't a chance she'd fail to spot it. She didn't waste more than a precious few seconds ensuring her immediate safety.
"Vanille!" she called out, the slightest hint of fear amplifying her voice. A single set of light footfalls just outside her room was reassuring her, and when Vanille's head poked through the door, framed by an unruly mess of red curls she clearly didn't have the time to tame, Fang felt some of the tension unwind from her body.
"Trouble," the other girl explained, her voice uncharacteristically cold, and Fang resisted the urge to sigh.
"There always is." She caught the underclothes Vanille threw her away without looking. "I'll get suited up," Fang said. "You pack up all the equipment you can. Just in case."
"I was sure I'd lost them this time," Vanille whispered as she turned to leave.
Fang didn't answer; there was nothing for her to say. When she was sure her sister was out of sight, she let her features twist into a snarl, unadulterated rage bubbling up from the pit of her stomach. There wouldn't be enough left of them to lose once she was through with them.
Familiar as the motions were, it was only a few brief minutes before Fang stood fully clad in the traditional armour of the Uridimmu Witcher school. Probably the only set left, she thought morosely. Killing the arcanophobic idiots trying to smoke them out of their home grew more appealing with every passing moment. She slung her silver sword over her back and did a brief check to ensure her potions, oils, and decoctions were all organized in their appropriate sashes and pouches. As the final step of the ritualistic preparation, she removed her prized weapon, Kain's Lance, from its place on her overburdened rack of arms, and set about coating both ends with a heavy and potent dose of Hanged Man's Venom. She cast a mournful look over the rest of her collection, a diverse array of steel and silver swords, a variety of spears and lances, and even a Mahakaman greataxe. "I'll come back for you later. Promise." Then she left the room without sparing so much as another glance behind her.
Her heavy footfalls seemed to reverberate as she marched down the stairs, though not nearly enough to drown out the screaming and shouting of the village outside. "You ready Vanille?" She called out. She held her lance out at the ready, unwilling to risk even the slightest chance of being caught off guard.
"Just about!" Vanille replied. Fang could see her fiddling with several strange devices arrayed in the corner of the room before they vanished in a flash of blinding light.
"Fuck, Vanille!" Fang cursed, rubbing at her eyes. She'd been looking right at it. "Some warning next time!"
"Sorry!" Vanille squeaked. "I was in such a rush, and I didn't think you'd be looking at it."
It was reassuring to hear a bit of her sister's bubbly attitude return to her, even if Fang knew it was almost certainly a facade. There was something about Vanille's cheerful demeanour that always seemed to soothe the tension tugging at Fang's nerves.
"It's fine," Fang assured her. "Much as I'd love to, we don't have time for a lecture. Are you ready to move? Because we're moving."
"You have a plan?" Vanille asked.
Fang felt a hint of a genuine smile tug at her cheeks. After all this time traveling together, her sister still didn't know better than to ask that question.
"Something in that vein."
Vanille's gaze fell. "Fang no."
Fang's emerald eyes seemed to sparkle. "Too late."
Vanille hefted her binding rod, a strange sorcerer's staff that seemed built as much for physical combat as it was channeling arcane energies, with a sigh. "Just… try not to get us both killed."
Fang grinned. Then she kicked the front door open. The smoke wasn't near as bad as she'd feared it might be, although the sounds of terror and conflict were a great deal more oppressive out in the open. She brought two fingers to her lips in a shrill whistle, nodding appreciatively as the sound of galloping hooves appeared within a moment's notice. The jet black stallion reared to a halt in front of her, and as soon as he was back on four hooves Fang threw herself into the saddle, Vanille climbing up and taking a place behind her right after. "Bahamut!" Fang called out, urging the stallion forward towards the place where the noise of conflict was loudest. "Let's ride!"
As Bahamut tore through the streets, Fang let her eyes narrow. Men, women, and children alike were fleeing in the opposite direction, with naught but the clothes on their back and what few possessions they could carry. She slowed Bahamut's pace just a little to ensure he wouldn't accidentally trample them. She hadn't been here long, all things considered, but Oerba was the closest thing to home that Fang had known in decades. She and Vanille were accepted here. That acceptance was tentative at first, and likely only existed for the fact that none of the villagers felt strong enough to shoo them away. Now, however…
One of the fleeing men paused, waving his arms as he desperately tried to catch her gaze. "Master witcher!" He called out. "Witch hunters in the town square!"
"I'll take care of it," she assured him, briefly slowing Bahamut's pace to a trot. "Just make sure your family is safe." Then they were off again. Fang felt her simmering anger boil into white hot fury. They had honest to the gods friends here - a life here - and now the damned hunters were threatening to take that all away. Teachings be damned; she always fought her best when she was angry. She'd seen enough of the world in her travels to know good people usually didn't deserve their lot in life. It was the sad truth of a world where death could lurk in every shadow, but these… these were her people.
As Bahamut cleared the end of the narrow street and charged into the village square, Fang swept her gaze across the area, assessing the situation with a single sweeping gaze. The gathering hall was fully ablaze, and the homes of the village elders were similarly engulfed in fire. The flames hadn't spread far, but it would only be a matter of time before tongues of fire licked at the dangerously dry thatched roofs that covered so many of Oerba's buildings. Only a blind man could believe the fire was natural, and Fang was far from blind. She noted the presence of people, and her gaze quickly flicked across the evident perpetrators of the arson. Eight men and four women were spread across the square, each bearing arms of average make, and most were garbed in the telltale apparel of a witch hunter. Several individuals had been rounded up into a cluster between them, looking quite a bit worse for wear. One of the hunters was waving his weapon and jeering at them.
She felt it more than she saw it, as each one of their gazes turned away from their quarry to fixate on her as Bahamut slowed to a gentle trot.
"Vanille," Fang began, her tone a quiet calm utterly at odds with the rage boiling inside her. "Make sure those people get to safety-" she gestured at the people the witch hunters had rounded up - " then deal with the fire. I'll deal with our friends."
"Fang-"
"The sooner the flames are dealt with, the sooner you can help me," Fang said, cutting off her sister's protests. She swiftly dismounted Bahamut, withdrawing Kain's Lance from its resting place on her back. "Don't let Oerba go up in smoke."
Vanille cursed. "Fine. But if you die I'll never forgive you."
Fang laughed. It was an uncomfortable, feral sort of sound, and she relished the sight of several of the nearer witch hunters shifting uncomfortably. "If I died to these idiots, I wouldn't forgive myself."
One of the witch hunters had the gall to meet her approach halfway, the hunter's longsword gripped in a defensive stance. The deathgrip with which she clenched its hilt did not escape the witcher's notice, and she picked out three separate flaws in the hunter's guard before the woman could even bring herself to speak.
"Witcher," she said, and Fang could hear the way her voice reeked of hesitation. "We have no quarrel with you. Surrender the witch and we'll be on our way."
Fang raised an eyebrow. "That so?" she asked. The witch hunter looked stiff bordering on frozen. If she struck low, the woman didn't have a chance of knocking her blade aside.
The witch hunter offered her only a tight nod in reply. The motion was the flame to the fuse that brought all of Fang's fury to a head. She snarled as her lance lashed out, a low thrust that avoided the witch hunter's lousy guard and buried itself in the woman's stomach. She let out a startled gasp as her mouth began to open and close in a series of futile gestures. Fang was close enough to watch as the grievous wound and potent venom on her blade took their toll, and the flicker of life began to fade from the woman's eyes.
"You've quarrelled with my home and you've quarrelled with my sister," Fang growled. "You better believe you have a quarrel with me." She wrenched her weapon out of the hunter's stomach, paying no heed to the body as it crashed to the ground, the hunter's last agonized seconds of life bleeding away into the dirt. The other hunters had already surged into motion, several creeping towards her from the front as the smarter ones in the group looked to wrap around and attack her from behind.
Fang planted her feet in a wide stance as she twirled her lance with a flourish, bringing it to rest in a horizontal guard protecting her chest. "You coming or not?" She taunted. "I've got your fight right here!"
A pair of the hunters elected to charge her, and Fang allowed herself to grin. She always did have a knack for provoking people. The first of the pair was a huge man, standing closer to seven feet tall than six, and brandishing a spiked and oversized steel mace. He swung it forward with a bellow, intent on crushing her skull in a single blow. Fang deftly stepped to the side and let the weapon sail past her, crashing down towards the earth. The extended swing overbalanced the hunter and he stumbled forward with the momentum of his mace, trying to regain control of his heavy implement. Fang scoffed before viciously kicking him in the side of his knee. An awful cracking sound and a broken cry heralded his inelegant collapse to the earth. His partner seemed to possess more in the way of sense, and approached her more cautiously, a shield held up between them as he kept his own short sword held off to the side. She planted the blade of her lance firmly in the back of the downed mace-wielder and savoured the sharp exhale of breath leaving his body. She watched the fleeting flash of different emotions across the shieldbearer's face - anger, then fear, then anger again. She seized the opportunity.
"You planning on doing anything with that shield, or can I keep killin' your friends?" It did the trick, and the witch hunter's expression morphed from one of anger to indignant fury, his previous restraint forgotten as he slashed at her with his sword. Fang caught the blow with the haft of her lance, the steel connecting with a resonating clang. She forced the blade down and away before twirling the weapon around, striking hard at the hunter's left side. He caught the blow with his shield - barely - but she saw him grimace at the force of it. The deep gash in the wood left behind by her weapon's ruthless edge was a testament to the power behind her swings. Fang sensed motion behind her and spun to face it, ducking to avoid the high slash of a broadsword aimed at her neck. The hunters flanking her had finally worked up their nerve. A quick sign of Quen provided Fang an insurance policy against any glancing blows, and she abandoned her defensive posture. A blast of Aard left two of the Hunter's sprawled in the dirt as a third struggled to keep her feet. Fang was on them in an instant. The ruthless edge of her lance cut the throat of the first man like a drowner cut through water, and she didn't spare him another thought as she left him to choke on his own blood. The second was only just finding his feet when Fang kicked him back to the ground. A lazy twirl of her lance knocked his sword out of his hand, and she'd just put her throat on his boot to crush his windpipe when she heard a choked whisper: "I yield".
The fury coursing through her veins screamed at her to end him anyway, but the part of her that knew Vanille would never forgive her if she did won out. She removed her boot from his throat and kicked him the head hard, taking a small amount of satisfaction from the way the man's eyes rolled back as he blacked out. She didn't have time to worry about the woman she'd left reeling as she heard the shield bearer from before charge her with a howling cry.
She fought the urge to roll her eyes as she jabbed her lance behind her in the vague direction of the screaming. She heard the telltale scuffle of stumbling footfalls followed by a thump as he threw his weight to the side and fell to the ground, presumably to avoid impaling himself on the blade of her much longer weapon. If it wasn't also Vanille's life at stake, Fang might have taken a moment to laugh at the absurdity at all. Somehow, she was the last of the Uridimmu. Somehow, every last Witcher in her school had met their end. When this was the caliber of the hunters sent to kill her, it made her wonder if she really was the last of her kind. She had never been particularly popular amongst the others - maybe it was all an elaborate scheme to hide from her. It was easier to believe than the notion of these idiots striking down someone like Caius.
Her ears registered a muted twang, and Fang jerked to the side in such a way that the arrow fired in her direction broke on her shoulder plates rather than embedding itself in her neck. Forgetting the hunter with the shield, she blasted the woman who'd just regained her footing with another burst of aard then tore off in the direction of the archer. Though she'd never been known for her speed, the mutagens that warped her body ensured she was superhuman in every sense of the word; no ordinary man or woman could even dream of keeping pace with her. She closed the gap separating her from her ranged assailant in a matter of seconds. Three more of the Witch Hunters stepped into her path - looking to buy time for their archer to line up another shot she supposed. The first of the trio overextended herself to lunge forward with her spear. Fang ignored the attack, letting the shield from her Quen burst as it absorbed the blow before she retaliated, gripping the hunter's spear and yanking the weapon back. Its wielder's grip was tight, and the woman followed the weapon, tripping forward over her own feet as she stumbled forwards. The tip of Kain's Lance pierced the worn chainmail like cloth, and the hunter's grip on her weapon failed as Fang yanked her lance back out of the woman's chest. Fang ducked under a horizontal slash, deflecting the stab of a longsword with a spin of her lance as the hunters companions came - belatedly - to her defense. These two had a bit of coordination to their names, and Fang was forced to take several steps back as they pressured her from multiple angles. Another arrow soared into the melee, and Fang bit back a grunt as this one found a gap in her armour and embedded itself in her side. Damn archer was good.
Faced with the pressure of more arrows as deadly accurate as that one, Fang didn't have time to wait for an opening. She was sure the hunters she'd left behind had found their feet again, and there was at least one other unaccounted for as well. Fortunately, she had the tools to make her own. She flashed another sign, and the air before her was suddenly embroiled in flames, one of the hunters she'd been dueling panicking as his clothes were caught up in the fire. She exploited the opening, and cleaved him from hip to shoulder, the blade of her lance tearing through armour and flesh alike. She left the mortally wounded and burning witch hunter to die and set to work dispatching the other. He hadn't stood a chance against her with allies. Alone, it was a criminally unfair fight.
He swiped at her with his sword, and Fang knocked the weapon aside with a lazy parry. The move put her well inside the witch hunter's guard, and she struck with an upwards slash that aimed to take the man's arm off at the shoulder. Miraculously, he managed to throw himself backwards just enough that the blade only scratched him. Fang hardly minded. She hit the catch on the haft of her weapon, letting it split into three chain-linked pieces, and stabbed forward with a series of deadly thrusts, each meeting their fatal mark. By the time she was finished, the man's chest was a perforated mess of gore and ruined chainmail. He fell back without so much as a gasp and Fang turned her attention back to her original target.
She brought up a Quen barrier just in time as another arrow met its mark, and she stalked towards the archer with predatory intent. The archer desperately tried to nock another arrow, before tossing her bow aside with a cry of frustration. She pulled a dagger from her belt and eyed Fang warily.
"There you go, Sunshine." Fang lashed out, grinning as the archer backpedaled. There was a snap as her lance made contact with her target, the discarded bow broken cleanly in two its lethal edge. "Now try fighting with a real weapon." She attacked for real, forcing the woman back with a series of probing slashes and strikes. A dagger was useless against the reach of her lance, to the point that the woman might have been better off with no weapon at all. Fang stalked forward, pressing the witch hunter further and further until, eventually, her back hit the very literal wall. Fang savoured the way the blood seemed to drain from the woman's face. "Not a good place to be, is it?" Fang asked. "Back against the wall, a hunter in your face? Betcha you're used to seein' it from the other side. Not so pleasant from this side though, is it?"
The witch hunter snarled, and lunged at her with a stab. Fang could see it almost as though it were in slow motion. The hunter's movements were clumsy, and Fang could easily tell that the motion was unfamiliar. She reached out with her left hand, and grabbed the woman's wrist, halting the movement immediately. Her grip was tight enough to cut off the flow of blood, and she could see the hunter's face immediately twist in pain. Just a little tighter, and Fang was sure she could shatter the woman's wrist completely.
"Give me one reason not to gut you like a viper."
"Would any reason be good enough?"
Fang's eyes narrowed. Planting her lance in the ground for a moment, she lashed out with a right hook, fist connecting with the side of the witch hunter's head and letting her collapse bonelessly to the ground. Then she let out a startled gasp as she felt something cold pierce through her back. "Get away from her!" she heard somebody shout. She kicked behind her, hearing a muffled grunt of pain as her foot made contact with something, and she yanked Kain's Lance out of its resting place as she turned to face her newest assailant. She could still feel the weapon - a knife, it felt like - impaled in her back, but it didn't feel like it had hit anything important. Better to leave it there to keep the bleeding down, for now. Internally, Fang berated herself for getting so caught up in the moment she let a fucking witch hunter sneak up on her. Then she laid eyes on her attacker, sprawled in the dirt from the kick she'd hit him the gut with, and those thoughts left her.
The hood the witch hunter must have been wearing before had fallen back at some point in the fighting, revealing an untamed mop of silver hair and a face that couldn't have seen more than fourteen winters. "You're just a damned kid," Fang breathed. The fires were out now, and Fang could see that Vanille had the three hunters she hadn't dealt with well bound up with her binding rod. Vanille was safe and Oerba was safe. She felt some of the fury leave her.
"Hope," Fang heard the trembling voice of the archer speak up from behind her. "Just get out of here."
The boy struggled to his feet. "No!" he shouted. "I'm not leaving you behind!" And then so quietly that even Fang could barely hear it: "It's my fault you're here in the first place." He looked up at Fang as she approached and his eyes widened. "How are you-"
"Hate to say it kid, but you missed everything vital. Hurts though. Closer than most get, all considered."
Hope balked, his face warped by the weight of his disbelief. "You killed all those people!"
Fang grinned. "I'm a Witcher with a few screws loose. Killin's easy when you're used to it". Hope paled. "Oi! Vanille!" Fang called out. "If you're done hogtying our friends over there, I've got some new ones for you to meet!"
Vanille bounded over, only to halt with a gasp when Fang turned to check on the archer. "Fang, you've got a knife stuck in you!" She paused. "And an arrow!"
Fang laughed. It hurt only a little. "These two did a bit of a number on me. We can pull 'em out once you've got time and space to fix 'em. No point bleeding everywhere until then."
Vanille nodded her head in acceptance, and then looked the two witch hunters over. "Will you two walk with us to the holding cells, or do I need to get the ropes out?"
"This'll be a whole lot easier if you come quietly," Fang added with a shrug. "Although if you ask me, Vanille believes too much in second chances."
Hope looked like he was going to levy some sort of protest, but the voice of the archer silenced him. "We'll walk. Hope, can you help me up?"
The boy immediately scurried over, helping the woman pull herself up off the ground, then lodging herself under her arm to help her walk. "Lebreau, are you alright?" He asked.
"My head's spinning and I can't seem to think straight, but I'll walk it off."
"Fang, I think you gave her a concussion," Vanille scolded.
"She shot me!"
"That's true." Vanille nodded sagely. "Well time to go. The holding cells won't come to you, you know. Oh and they're really much nicer than they sound. I think the beds are more comfortable than Fang's, although that's probably because she likes sleeping on rocks in the first place."
Hope stared blankly as Vanille began to skip away. "I-"
Fang pushed him forward. "Just follow her. And don't get any bright ideas."
Vanille continued to chatter as they made their way back through the narrow streets towards the building where Oerba typically contained its various malcontents. Fang tuned it out, instead focusing on the smattering of people lining the streets, watching for anyone that might look to take justice into their own hands. In Fang's mind, they damn well had a right to, but Vanille was insistent in her definition of fair treatment, so for now, Fang could set aside her misgivings. They passed through uneventfully, until Fang noticed a rush of movement to her side. One hand was already reaching for her lance as she turned to face the commotion, though she relaxed when she saw the source. A little girl was running towards her, ignoring Fang's temporary charges completely.
"Miss Fang! Miss Fang!" She cried out. Fang couldn't resist the smile that tugged at her cheeks. "My mommy says you saved us! My mommy says you're a hero!" The girl was bouncing on her feet as she stood before her, and Fang could see out of the corner of her eye that Vanille and the two captive hunters had paused their procession.
"Well, little Aerith," Fang said, because although she'd deny it to the ends of the earth, the children of Oerba held a soft spot in her mutagen-altered heart, "I'd say that Vanille did all the saving. She put out the fires while I made sure she was safe. She's the hero."
"That just means you're both heroes!" Aerith insisted.
Fang laughed. "I'm glad you think so. Now run along home. We wouldn't want your momma to worry, would we?"
Aerith shook her head, but as she turned to run off again, she paused, her eyes wide. "Miss Fang, there's something stuck in you!"
"It's a souvenir, darling. Just something we witchers get from time to time. Don't let it worry your pretty little head."
Aerith nodded her head, clearly satisfied by the answer. Fang watched as the girl turned away, then cut a clumsy path back down the street. The witcher looked back towards her captives, carefully observing the way the boy stared at her like his world had been cut out from under him.
"Keep walking," Fang growled and gestured vaguely at the surrounding buildings. "I haven't forgotten why you came here, and neither have they." They walked the last short stretch towards Oerba's jailhouse in silence, even Vanille content to let the quiet linger for a time. The ones Vanille had bound earlier were already carted over, and were in the process of being relieved of anything that could possibly constitute weapons or armour by what Fang presumed was a volunteer task force of villagers. Fang nodded with approval as one of the villagers came away with a handful of hairpins. They knew what to look for.
Fang pulled her sister aside. "I'll take it from here, 'Nille."
Vanille squared her shoulders. "Fang, I will not have you bludgeoning our prisoners as soon as I look away."
"Look, I didn't kill 'em while you were looking away before, and I was angry then. I'm not gonna kill 'em now." Vanille's hard look didn't fade. "Look, I might not be dying but the knife in my back is hardly comfortable. Could you just… get what you need to take care of it? Please?" Vanille's eyes softened, and she turned away with a sigh.
"Fine. But I mean it Fang. If you so much as throw a sucker punch, I won't be happy."
"I believe you. Now go on girl, get! I'm still stabbed over here." As Vanille all but pranced her way out of the building, Fang let herself relax into a seated position on the floor. "Hey," she started, grabbing the attention of one of the villagers. "Wake me up once you're certain you've looked over everything, and I'll give them all a once over, just in case." The villager nodded his acquiescence, and Fang closed her eyes, body and mind collapsing into a deep meditative trance.
She approached with silent footfalls, steps guided by the faint glow radiating from the cliffside cavern above her. She stopped only when she could go no farther, placing one hand against the harsh stone face of the cliff, craning her neck to take in the contrast of the dim luminescence against the blackened backdrop of the night sky. Her heart felt heavy - far heavier than the lone sword hanging uselessly from her hip, its perfect blade impotent against the guilt warring with her conscience.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, her voice steady and resolute. "I'll fix this. I promise."
I always thought Fang would be great with kids. Just so long as she's not committed to them, I guess. Best aunt ever, but no time for being a mother.
Anyway, this fandom's heyday was well before CD Projekt Red blessed us with the Witcher 3, which tragically means we never seemed to get a Witcher AU, something any self respecting fandom isn't complete without. I think Fang would be an awesome witcher, in an "I know we've used swords since the founding of our order, but this double sided lance is just the greatest thing ever" sort of way. Hopefully this story shows that.
You can follow me on my tumblr that I'm just restarting to catch sneak previews of upcoming chapters as well as send me questions or prompts or whatever else you're interested in sending. I might also post stuff for random prompts from Fangrai Forever that I like as well. Find that here (remove the spaces): www . tumblr blog / orderlyanarchist
If tumblr isn't your thing, you can also leave any questions or whatever that you might have for me in a review, because I do in fact read those and will definitely get back to you.